Seth Rogen, Maestro of the Awkward Sex Scene

In the raunch-comedy romp Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising (which hits theaters Friday), Seth Rogen enjoys not one but two sex scenes—each of them weird, wonderful, and whatever the opposite of arousing is in its own unique way.

The first involves the comedian in character as bong-addled, office-working suburban dad Mac Radner, trying to get it on with his wife, Kelly (Rose Byrne), without awakening their infant daughter. Rogen’s muffled, Muppet-like moans of pleasure are interrupted by Kelly asking, “Do you want me to put a pillow over your mouth?” “I’m a vocal lover!” comes Rogen’s strangled reply. The scene ends with him covered in vomit. (Don’t ask.) The second sex sequence…well, suffice it to say Rogen has grease-paint six-pack abs and Byrne is wearing a cheerleader’s outfit; the couple is celebrating having (temporarily) thwarted the party-hearty sorority that has moved in next door by making as much noise as they damn well please.

But lest you assume such scenes are outliers in the Rogen movie oeuvre: They’re not. By this point in his career, the huggable Canadian funnyman has performed the no-pants dance in an ever-growing number of movies and TV shows. Sure, he’s got world-class dad bod and readily describes himself as a “bear icon.” But Rogen’s onscreen boots-knocking bona fides are beyond reproach. He may not have “fuck-me lines” on his lower abdomen, but he’s quietly evolved into a romantic lead—not just popular culture’s most iconic face of bromance culture—pretty much without anyone noticing. For your enjoyment (or, you know, cringing agony), here’s a brief history of Seth Rogen’s career as an awkward-sex hero.

Knocked Up (2007)

The logline: a one-night stand between a slacker slob (Rogen) and an icily elegant on-air media personality (Katherine Heigl) leads to unplanned pregnancy—as well as unexpected tenderness that develops between the characters. But their uglies-bumping session during her second trimester sets a high bar for awkward onscreen intimacy. “All I’m thinking of is, I weigh over 200 pounds…I can’t do it,” Rogen says. “All I see is our baby getting poked in the face by my penis.”

“Trust me,” deadpans a frustrated Heigl, “you’re not even close.”

Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008)

In writer-director Kevin Smith’s sex comedy, Rogen and Elizabeth Banks play best friends turned platonic roommates whose negative cash flow inspires a desperation move that will violate their long-standing no-sex pact: The two agree to get horizontal in a porn film to generate quick cash. Nothing goes right during production of the film, entitled “Swallow My Cockachino,” until the, ahem, climactic sequence that finds the two friends—appearing as a lusty coffee-house barista and cream-delivery man—falling in love while the cameras roll.

Observe and Report (2009)

The comedian’s most controversial movie copulation to date. Portraying a bipolar mall cop, Rogen goes home with Anna Faris’s character, an obnoxious makeup clerk hopped up on tequila and beer, for the mother of all sloppy hook-ups. Faris appears unconscious for much of the exchange—she wakes up from her stupor just long enough to question a concerned Rogen, “Why are you stopping, motherfucker?”—prompting something of an Internet assault. “It’s not funny, Seth,” a blogger for feministing.com says in one of numerous such YouTube response videos. “You’re basically giving [men] permission to not take rape seriously.”

Broad City (2015)

Arriving as a kind of oblique response to his Observe and Report contretemps, in season two of Comedy Central’s pioneering sitcom, Rogen’s character, "Male Stacy," passes out from heat stroke during sex with Abbi Jacobson’s character and is subsequently taken advantage of. “He seriously wanted it,” she tells co-star Ilana Glazer on the show. “That is literally what [male rapists] say,” argues Glazer, leading to Jacobson’s terrible conclusion: “Dude, I raped him. I raped Male Stacy. I’m a monster!”

“Bound 2” (2013)

During production on The Interview, Rogen and co-star/frequent partner in bromantic crime James Franco (call them “Jeth”?) were inspired to film a shot-for-shot remake of Kanye West’s weirdly impressionistic video for the song “Bound 2.” The Louis Vuitton Don’s sequences of wild horses running free, sweeping vistas of Monument Valley, and roiling footage of cumulus clouds are all intact. But where Kim Kardashian West plays an object of lust in the original clip, here she is replaced by Rogen—topless, gyrating his hips suggestively, and showing resplendent tufts of back hair—making out with Franco on a motorcycle in a deliciously straight-faced send-up.

Neighbors (2014)

In the first installment of director Nicholas Stoller’s frat-versus-family raunch fest, Byrne and Rogen attempt a spontaneous nooner on a dining room chair. But the goo-goo-ga-ga-ing of their infant daughter serves to diffuse their passions. “She can’t see anything. She just sees shapes,” Byrne insists.

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“She sees shapes fucking each other!” Rogen replies.

The Interview (2014)

Set to a pummeling nu-metal soundtrack, the sex sequence is nasty, brutish, and short: eight seconds in total duration, to be exact. Rogen is an American talk-show producer on a covert mission to assassinate North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. Diana Bang plays Kim’s chief propagandist who secretly despises her boss. And they perform the wild thing leaned against a metal table in a shadowy arsenal bristling with high-caliber weaponry. “You’ve got a lot of pent-up energy!” Rogen exclaims by way of pillow talk.

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